DSx86_LW2 Release Notes
DSx86_LW2 is a technical demonstration of my PC emulator for Nintendo DS.
Since the actual emulator is still very limited in the opcodes, DOS calls
and hardware it can support, I can not release a version that would allow you
to test any DOS program on it (as with a 99.9% probability they wouldn't work).
The only two programs my emulator currently runs are Wing Commander 2 by Origin,
and my own old DOS game LineWars II. Of course Wing Commander 2 is copyrighted
material so I can not include it, and since releasing a demo that does nothing
useful unless you have purchased a certain game nearly 20 years ago is not very
smart, I'll release the demo version bundled with my LW2.
The size of the nds file is about 627 kilobytes, of which 224 kilobytes is taken
by LineWars II (11 KB for the LW2.COM loader and 214KB by the LW2R.DAT data file),
and the rest by the emulator core itself.
The demo begins at the start of the LW2.COM code inside an inbuilt x86 debugger.
You can run it either by pressing the B button on your Nintendo DS, or by using
the touchpad and clicking on the G on the low left corner followed by the v symbol
(meaning "Enter"). When the demo starts, use the shoulder L and R buttons to scroll
the screen, so that you can see the whole 320x200 graphics screen or the 80x25 text
screen. One interesting info you might want to check out is the framerate counter
on the right bottom of the LineWars II game screen (after you have launched into
a game).
Feel free to play around in the debugger if you wish, and you can also break into
the debugger at any time when the game is running by clicking on the Close (X)
button on the virtual keyboard in the touchpad. Please note, though, the inbuilt
debugger is meant just for my development aid, and therefore is read-only and not
very feature-rich.
If the demo breaks into the debugger by itself, it means it ran into an opcode
that is not yet supported. There is no way to continue after this has happened,
so just reboot and start over. :-)
Have fun with the demo, and if you have any comments or questions, feel free
to use the http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=16956 GBADev forum thread
for those!
Patrick Aalto